


The Student Librarian

by Isis



Category: The Invisible Library - Genevieve Cogman
Genre: Backstory, Caper Fic, Gen, Pre-Canon, slight hint of one-sided Irene/Bradamant feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 21:38:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11067651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: Irene had been Bradamant's student once, and she knew exactly what it meant.(The Invisible Library, chapter 7)





	The Student Librarian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mechanonymouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanonymouse/gifts).



Irene had been working on an indexing assignment when her terminal gave the chime that indicated a new email message. She switched to her mail software, and then her heart raced as she saw the sender's name: Coppelia. Coppelia, her mentor; the woman who had official oversight over Irene's apprenticeship to the Library, who directed her research and arranged her fieldwork. The woman who would make the decision to elevate Irene to Librarianship, when the time came. 

Irene knew she was still much younger than the usual age for this promotion. But her parents were Librarians; she'd been born to the task, and by the time she began her formal training she'd already had much more experience than any of the other students. She'd chosen her Library name years ago. And so, as always these days, when Irene saw there was an email from Coppelia, she had a moment's bright hope that maybe, finally, she was to get her tattoo and become a real, full Librarian. She held her fingers over the keyboard for a moment, in anticipation, then tapped the key to open the message.

_Irene –_  
_Your research on the Čapek works from alternate B-2214 was very helpful, thank you. But I believe it's past time you got some more fieldwork under your belt. At the moment all of my Librarians are on long-term assignments, so I've arranged with Kostchei to have one of his people take you on for a job in parallel A-418, United States of America. I'm certain it will be beneficial to both of you._

Damn. Just another student assignment. And what did Coppelia mean by assigning her to one of Kostchei's Librarians? Was there some intrigue going on that she didn't know about? No, that was a stupid question. There was always intrigue in the Library. Being a student made you an automatic pawn in whatever games the senior Librarians were playing, and Irene was tired of it. Just another reason she wanted to get her tattoo.

Sighing, she typed out her acknowledgment, copying it to Kostchei so he'd know she was on her way to the Traverse. She sent it off, then searched the system for information on her assignment destination, since Coppelia hadn't included a briefing. She'd spent time in plenty of A-designated worlds in her childhood, during her parents' rotations in the alternates; these had technology but no magic. This particular alternate was well into the computer era, and most of its countries had rather alarming military capabilities, but fortunately they were currently more or less at peace. Clothing styles in this alternate's United States were generally unisex, so her jeans and plain shirt ought to be fine; in any event, if she had been supposed to wear any particular style of clothing it would have been in her instructions. 

Then she noticed the Traverse location information – or rather, the lack of Traverse location information. The residential area allocated to students was more or less central, and the A-wing was not far away. But there was no dedicated exit point to A-418. It must be a world only tenuously connected to the Library, which was actually sort of exciting, because it implied that the book she'd be helping to retrieve on this assignment was a unique product of this world. By bringing it to the Library, they would be helping to strengthen the connection between worlds, maybe even creating the permanent Traverse. But how was she supposed to get there?

Her email pinged again. With relief she saw it was a map, marked with the spot where she was to meet her mentor for this mission. It was a point not far into A-wing, only a couple of floors up and a few corridors over, not even an hour and a half away. A short jaunt by Library standards.

Nobody was there when she got to the indicated spot, which was a bit irritating considering they'd just summoned her, but students were the lowest priority, and she'd be expected to wait uncomplainingly. She pulled a book at random from the shelves and began to read. Not that she could concentrate on the story, of course. All she could do was wonder why she'd been chosen for this particular assignment, and speculate on the identity of the Librarian she'd be working with.

"Irene, I presume." 

She looked up, startled. She hadn't heard a door open, or footsteps. But she recognized the voice, cool and faintly disdainful as it curled around the syllables of her name, and when she looked up she recognized the pale skin and dark cap of hair. Bradamant. 

A peculiar mixture of discomfort, dismay, and hope flooded Irene's chest. She didn't really know Bradamant well – most of the junior Librarians she knew were Coppelia's people – but she'd seen her in seminars, and occasionally in student gatherings, as Bradamant had only become a Librarian a few years ago. Or at least, to Irene it had been a few years; time was a tricky thing when one spent as much time outside as inside the library. Certainly Bradamant, in a severely-tailored suit with short skirt and high heels, looked even more polished and sophisticated than she had as a student, a thing Irene was surprised to admit possible. She'd always regarded the other woman with a combination of envy and admiration, and occasionally had entertained the fantasy of approaching her, trying to get to know her. To maybe become friends with her. To maybe.... But she never had done so. 

And then, after Bradamant had graduated from the students' ranks and got her tattoo, after she'd started mentoring students, taking them on her missions – there had been rumors. Ordinarily one stayed with one's field mentor on a succession of assignments, but as far as Irene knew, nobody stayed with Bradamant for long.

She'd known one other student who'd done fieldwork with her, nearly a year ago. He was younger than Irene, chunky and cherub-faced, and he had been dithering about the choice of his Library name – he'd been trying to choose between Huck and Candide – when he'd been sent off with Bradamant. When he returned, his mouth seemed to be set in a permanent scowl, and he refused to talk about his experiences. He had put in a request for another field mentor, but as far as Irene knew, he had yet to go on another mission.

"Yes," said Irene. "Coppelia said I was to go with you to A-418."

"Very good." Bradamant appraised her with cool eyes, then turned and tapped the sheaf of papers she held against a bookcase. To Irene's surprise, it...shifted, somehow; not a shift in space, but in some quality, as though the light source illuminating it had been changed out for one in a different spectrum. Then she pushed at it with her other hand, and with a groaning sound, it moved backwards, swinging on unseen hinges like a door. She stepped through, then turned back to Irene. "I haven't all day."

"Sorry," said Irene, jumping to her feet. She was about to go through the door when Bradamant's eyes cut to something behind her.

"Is that your book?"

"Oh. Yes. Sorry." Bradamant was going to think that was her entire vocabulary, wasn't she. _Yes. Sorry. Yes. Sorry._ Face red, Irene went back to the table and retrieved the book, then carefully placed it back on its shelf before following Bradamant through the door.

* * *

They emerged in an unlit storage closet, which, when Bradamant swung the outer door open, turned out to be attached to a parking garage. High heels clicking on the concrete floor, Bradamant strode toward a bank of elevators, not looking back to see if Irene was behind her. She took a plastic card from her pocket and slid it across a matte black panel between the two sets of elevator doors. The _up_ arrow beside the door lit up in a pale green.

Irene bit her lip as they waited for the elevator. She wanted to ask why they'd emerged in a place that was obviously not a library, but she still felt a bit embarrassed and didn't want to say anything that Bradamant would regard as stupid. Fortunately, the other woman spoke first.

"As you've doubtless noticed, we arrived through a temporary gate. We're in the Hilton, where I've taken suite 625." She handed Irene a plastic card that was the twin of the one she'd used to call the elevator. "If any problems arise during the mission, you are to return to the room and wait for me there."

Irene nodded, then gathered her courage. It was something she wanted to know, and it was, she thought, reasonable to ask. "How did you make a gate to a place without books?"

"This building used to be a library, once. It was torn down in order to build a hotel, but the foundation still remains as the garage, which made creating the temporary passage a bit less complicated than otherwise. And it's in a convenient location, a short cab ride from our library of interest."

A soft chime sounded, and the pale green arrow turned to dark green as the elevator doors opened. The two women stepped in. Bradamant tapped her plastic card against the control panel as the door slid closed again, and the elevator car moved smoothly upward.

"Is there a reason the temporary passage wasn't made from the library of interest?"

Bradamant gave her a sharp nod that looked suspiciously like approval. "As is not uncommon on high-technology worlds, there's a fairly high level of automated security."

"Like these key cards," said Irene. She turned hers in her hand. It was a deep gray with the Hilton logo in red and a single line of type across the bottom, obviously the hotel's address. No room number, but she assumed it would open the door to 625, in addition to operating the elevator. Clearly this was intended to restrict elevator usage to hotel guests and ensure that nobody went to an unauthorized floor, as there were no buttons or indicators in the elevator car other than a single emergency call button, tastefully outlined in red against the black panel.

"Precisely. A hotel, with its constant flow of strangers, is an easy place to blend in. Credentials can be purchased. On the other hand, our text of interest resides in the library of a small college. If I were to impersonate a faculty member I'd be discovered instantly."

The chime sounded again, and the doors slid open to reveal a small anteroom with two doors, one to the left and one to the right, each bearing a matte panel similar to that outside the elevator. This, Irene realized, was intended to prevent someone from riding up the elevator with another person and exiting at the wrong floor. A rather silly precaution in her opinion, as it was natural human behavior to hold the door for the person following. Or at least it was on every world she'd been to; maybe the people here were unusually paranoid, and nobody ever held the door for someone else.

Bradamant used her card to open the right-hand door, and proceeded down the long hallway on the other side; Irene dutifully followed, her shoes sinking into the thick beige-and-brown carpet. The walls were a paler beige, and abstract paintings in slightly more vivid shades hung at odd intervals between the doors.

"What about impersonating a student? There must be more of them."

Bradamant, who had just stopped at the door marked 625 to place her card against the lock panel, turned to smile at her.

"That, my dear Irene, is where you come in."

* * *

The entrance to the building was a large square arch of stone and metal, capital letters across the top spelling out its name: ATHENAEUM. Irene nodded to the security guard lounging outside, then walked through, hoping that the forged student identity card in her pocket would be accepted by the electronic security measures. No sirens sounded or lights flashed, fortunately. But this was only the main building; the library was through another door, and it had, according to Bradamant, more stringent security.

"This card will get you into the complex, and also into the library," she had said during the briefing in their hotel suite, handing Irene a plastic rectangle with her photo on it. Under the photo was Irene's name – or rather, the name she would be using for this mission, "Irene Smith-Jones," and a number which presumably indicated her purported graduation year. A chip was embedded by the upper right corner, and the college logo formed a watermark in the clear lamination. "If anybody challenges you, show them your card. It will scan you through as a registered student. You are not, however, in the actual database, so if they look you up on a computer, you'll be revealed as an impostor."

"Just how small is this college? Are there enough students that I won't be obviously a stranger?"

"A thousand, which should be sufficient. In any event, it's not far into the term. Claim to be a recent transfer if you must." Bradamant frowned. "Your American accent is fairly good, but it might be safer to say you're from Canada."

"Of course." That was the Library's standard subterfuge in English-speaking countries, when one's accent might give one away as a stranger. Once she had asked Coppelia what Librarians did when visiting Canada. Coppelia had just looked at her patiently, eyebrows raised, until she drew the obvious conclusion: they claimed to be Americans, of course.

Irene also had a second chipped card that Bradamant had given her. It appeared to be a Visa-branded credit card, but the chip, Bradamant had told her, actually held a bit of clever software that would disarm the book's installed anti-theft bug and prevent it from sounding the alarm when it was carried out of the library.

When Irene had asked why she, a presumed student, couldn't just check the book out, Bradamant had said that the volume did not circulate. "You will need to request it from the Special Collections desk for use within the library. Wait fifteen minutes before leaving with it."

Irene closed her hand around the two cards in her pocket. It seemed like a straightforward task. She'd just wait until the attendant was busy with something else. It was a pity that Bradamant was too old to pass as a student; it would have been easier for her to simply open a door to the Library using the Language, bypassing the need to exit via the security doors. But then Irene wouldn't have had this opportunity to work with her, and the chance to impress her. 

The library entrance was up a flight of stairs and through another security gate. At this one, she needed to hold her forged student ID to a plaque by the door similar to the ones in their hotel. When she did, the red light over the plaque turned green, and she heard the door lock click open. With relief, she went inside the library.

Irene always felt a little better inside a library. She was born to be a Librarian; even if she was not yet officially in their ranks, the Library felt like home. The libraries on the various parallel worlds felt like pieces of home on those often-times strange worlds. This one had exterior walls made of glass. This was not good for the books, as it let the sunlight in, but it made the interior space seem airier and more open than it really was. 

She walked across the room and up the stairway that led to the upmost level, passed through a third security gate, and entered the Special Collections reading room. Bradamant had instructed her to arrive shortly after three in the afternoon, when the library was busiest, but there were only a half-dozen students poring over texts and typing notes on laptops, not a lot of cover for smuggling out a book.

The reference desk was nearly bare except for a stack of magazines – it looked like mostly library-industry and news analysis periodicals – and a computer terminal. Behind it stood an older man with a thick white beard and nearly no hair on his head. Irene could see that he had a good line of sight to the students' tables, which was a pity. It looked like he was reading something on his tablet computer, though, so maybe he wouldn't be too observant. She dropped her bag on a chair by the table closest to the door, claiming it, then went to the desk.

"I'd like to look at –" she began, but the attendant held up a hand, smiling apologetically.

"Enter your request into the system, please." He indicated the terminal on the desk. She hadn't noticed that it faced out to the reading room, rather than back toward the librarian.

"Sorry," she murmured. She looked at the terminal, which displayed the library logo. There was a flat section to the right of the keyboard that resembled the security plaques. Guessing, she reached into her pocket for her forged ID and swiped it against the keyboard. The logo vanished, replaced by an electronic form with spaces for book, author, and a call number. "I don't have the call number," she said, feeling foolish. Why hadn't Bradamant known to give it to her?

"That's all right. Just the author and title is sufficient." His voice was kind. "You must be a new student. You'll get used to the procedure."

"Yes, I transferred here this year," Irene said as she typed. Steinke, Darcey. _Up Through the Water_. The first novel by an alumna of the school who had later become moderately well-known, at least in this world. Bradamant had said that it had been a very small print run, and that she hadn't been successful in finding a copy anywhere else, where it might be easier to steal or even simply buy.

The librarian tapped something on his tablet, then nodded. "Just a moment, Miss Smith-Jones." He disappeared into the reference stacks.

The tablet must be wirelessly connected to the computer system, Irene realized, giving him her request and her identity. Not for the first time she wished that wireless systems worked in the Library. It would be so much more convenient than always having to find a terminal!

The librarian handed Irene the book, and she took it back to the table where she'd left her bag. In the bag was a laptop computer that Bradamant had given her, which she pulled out, set up, and turned on. There were also three other books – decoys, so to speak – and she placed them on the desk on the far side of the Steinke, between her and the librarian, as a sort of screen. 

Now, to wait fifteen minutes. Irene opened a new text document on the laptop, since she'd have to write _something_. All the other students in the reading room had laptops in front of them, as apparently this world didn't go in for low-tech note-taking with pen and paper. Typing on the laptop would help her blend in.

She opened the book and began to read. It would be easy to just let herself be absorbed by the story, taken away to Ocracoke Island, but of course she couldn't do that. She needed to write some notes on the laptop, both for verisimilitude and for whoever found it later; and she needed to study the librarian's habits; and she needed to pay attention to the clock. It seemed to her that she'd read only a handful of pages and written a few short lines when the clock indicated she'd been there the required fifteen minutes.

All right. Time to prepare to make her move. She'd observed that the librarian didn't really pay much attention to the room at all, but instead mostly studied whatever was on his tablet, occasionally putting it down to leaf through one of the magazines stacked next to the terminal.

Irene removed the false credit card from her pocket, then ran her fingers surreptitiously over the book's cover, finding the small, smooth bump that indicated the anti-theft device. It was on the back cover near the spine, which made it easy to slide the card into position, and by keeping the book horizontal or spine-down, it would keep the device in the right place. 

The raised lid of the laptop hid her movement from the librarian and most of the students as she carefully slid the book towards and then into her bag. She took another book from the top of her decoy pile and opened it next to the laptop; now things looked just as they had a moment ago, except now the open book was a copy of Twain's _Roughing It._ Then Irene pushed her chair back and got to her feet. 

The librarian looked her way, of course – she saw him out of the corner of her eye – but seeing her books and laptop still spread across the table, he only gave her a quick glance before returning his attention to his magazine. Good. 

Casually she lifted her bag from the chair beside her and began to walk to the doorway. It was down a short hallway, around the corner from the reference desk, and as soon as she was out of sight of the librarian she relaxed a fraction. He hadn't looked up again, or called out. Hopefully he assumed she was getting up for a quick trip to the ladies' room and would be back in a moment. She reached the Special Collections security gate, and stepped through.

Alarms sounded. Lights flashed. And a metal grating slammed down in front of her.

* * *

Bradamant was sitting in an armchair in the shared living room of their hotel suite, leafing through a book, when Irene walked in at quarter past nine. She looked up without a shred of concern or worry on her face, closed the book, and got to her feet. "Good, you're here. Do you need anything from your room, or are you ready to return?"

Irene stared at her. _No curiosity about why I'm so late getting back? No concern for my safety?_ A dozen angry responses flashed through her head. But Bradamant was the leader of this mission. The difference between the promotion Irene had been waiting for and the uncomfortable limbo that Huck (or Candide) was now stuck in could hinge on a favorable report.

So she bit back her first instinctive words, and instead said, in as calm a voice as she could manage, "We can't return yet. I didn't get the book."

That was an understatement. As soon as the security door had closed on her she had immediately turned around and started walking back to her table, but the attendant intercepted her. "I'm sorry," she said, before he could say anything. "I was going to the restroom and I forgot I had the book with me."

"Empty your bag on the table, Miss Smith-Jones." He no longer sounded friendly. 

All the students at the other desks watched her avidly as she opened her bag. As she tilted it onto the table, she reached in to dislodge the false credit card, so it tumbled out separately from the book, along with a few pens and a tube of lip balm.

The man picked up the book then swept the rest of her things, including the bag, into a small box. "That's my credit card," she protested. _Which was supposed to disarm the anti-theft bug. Why hadn't it worked?_

"We take attempted theft very seriously here."

"I just forgot," she repeated. "Look, you can see I left my own books on the table, and my laptop, too. Obviously I was going to come back."

Two uniformed guards had entered the room, a man and a woman. Both had stern expressions that made the disapproving look on the librarian's face seem gentle by comparison.

"We'll determine that," said the male guard, taking the box. The female guard looked at the laptop screen for a long moment, then closed it and stacked Irene's decoy books on top, and put them all into the box the other guard carried. Then she took Irene by the arm with a firm grip.

"Come with me, please."

What followed was several hours of humiliation that Irene was _not_ going to describe to Bradamant. She'd had to surrender her student ID, which was quickly determined to be a forgery when the database check failed to tally with the card reading. All the documents on her laptop were copied, then the laptop itself disassembled and scrutinized. Her books were examined minutely, their covers slit and investigated for foreign objects. Both her "credit card" and her Hilton room key were run through a scanner. And she was asked questions, lots of questions.

She'd finally been released when she'd "admitted" that she was from another school, and that she'd been assigned to steal a book as part of a hazing ritual for the sorority she'd pledged. They had taken down her (fictitious) home address and telephone number, given her a warning, and sent her on her way. They'd kept everything but the hotel key card and the tube of lip balm, and told her she could return for the rest in a week, after they'd examined her things further. And of course she didn't have _Up Through the Water_ , either.

"That's all right," said Bradamant. She sounded...bored? Amused? Yes, the corner of her mouth was definitely quirked upward.

Irene thought for a moment. The card that was supposed to have disarmed the anti-theft device hadn't worked. And the guards hadn't noticed anything strange about it when they ran it through their scanner. The flash of anger she'd felt when Bradamant hadn't seemed worried about her late return blossomed in her heart into a slow, white flame.

"The Steinke book wasn't the target," she said evenly. "I was a decoy. A diversion."

Bradamant's smirk grew into a genuine smile. "Very good, Irene! You'll make a Librarian yet."

"The fifteen minutes," Irene went on, her mind working furiously as she put the pieces together. "That was so you could get into position. What did you do, break in during the alarms, so the alarm you set off wouldn't be noticed? What was the real target?"

Bradamant held up the book she'd been reading. Irene could see the title: _Mules of Love_. "A volume of lesbian poetry by another alumna. Not bad, really." She closed the book and placed it under her arm. "Well, then. Shall we go?"

* * *

"Thank you for coming to see me," said Coppelia dryly. As if Irene had had a choice. A summons was a summons, even if preceded by the word _please_. Coppelia indicated a chair, and Irene sat down. "You turned down a fieldwork assignment." 

"Yes," said Irene.

"You were lucky that Bradamant offered to take you out again. Losing valuable Library equipment and delaying the mission's scheduled return put a bit of a black mark on your record, you know."

"I know."

"And rejecting a Librarian's offer for a mission adds an even blacker one."

"I know that, too."

"I'm not going to ask for an explanation." Coppelia's dark face was as unreadable as always, but Irene thought she saw the tiniest spark of sympathy in her eyes. If Bradamant had done anything actually wrong by the Library code, that would be one thing. But she hadn't. Any complaint Irene made would be seen as whining at best, betrayal at worst. "But you do realize you're going to be stuck here with me doing my research for a while."

"I like doing your research," said Irene. It was even the truth. She hesitated a moment. "But if I've hurt your standing with Kostchei –" 

For one horrible moment she thought something had gone badly wrong with Coppelia's clockwork. Then she realized that the wheezing sound was Coppelia's laughter. "Quite the other way around. He was finding out how far he can push me. He's learned that it's not very far at all."

"So all this is just a game among Librarians?" Irene knew she sounded bitter. She'd hoped she had more use to the Library than as a mere pawn. 

Coppelia's voice turned as hard and steely as the clockwork in her joints. "Everything, my dear Irene, is a game. But just because something is a game does not mean it is not important."

And that, reflected Irene as she headed back to the student quarters, was the lesson she was to take from this experience. Along with the lesson that one should never, ever, _ever_ go on a mission with Bradamant. 

She was sure she'd remember both of these lessons for the rest of her life.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote from canon that I used as a summary continues: _Irene had been Bradamant’s student once, and she knew exactly what it meant. Get used as a live decoy, somehow miss any of the credit but catch all the blame. Then spend years putting your research credentials back together again, after the blot on your record caused by rejecting an older Librarian’s offer to take you out on another mission._
> 
> The knowledgeable reader may recognize the library Irene visits as that of Goucher College. The two works mentioned are actual books by alumnae. Any discrepancies from the actual Goucher College are due to this version being on an an alternate world.
> 
> Thanks to Ann for beta-reading.


End file.
